Fade to Black
by magista
Summary: The episode is "Chosen". Spike is contemplating the amulet; Buffy's thinking things over out on the porch. She goes back downstairs to see him for the second time and we - fade to black? That's just not right. Here's what I saw...


**Fade to Black**   
magista 

They stood for long moments, looking across the basement at one another. Buffy was first to break the silence. "Faith still has my room," she said, as she crossed the floor. "She needs another night to recover." 

"Well, this isn't exactly the Hilton, love, but you're welcome to what I've got," he said, indicating the cot against the wall. That earned him a quizzical look. "For a place to sleep," he added, fearing that she might mistake his intentions. He had no pride, not when it came to her. He'd do anything she asked, without reservation, but he didn't expect the same of her. 

"It's not that," she was quick to insist, closing the distance between them. "It's just ... anything else... I think it would feel like, 'Hey, we're gonna die anyway.'" 

Spike smiled. "Then you should think of it more as reminding yourself what you've got reason to live for." 

Buffy couldn't help herself; she laughed. "Is the ego like a gift-with-purchase when you become a vampire? Because the two of you..." She stopped when he ducked his head, breaking from her gaze - and at that point she made up her mind. 

She reached for him, two fingers under his chin tipping his face back up, and towards her. "Spike," she murmured. "I'm _here_." When he didn't reply, Buffy leaned forward and kissed him. 

It wasn't a passionate kiss, as kisses go, just her warm lips pressing gently to his cool ones. She drew back, a puzzled crease forming between her brows. Spike said nothing. 

She took his hands in hers and placed them at her waist. Moonlight sketched the fine lines around his eyes, eyes as blue as the sky he would never see. Slowly, deliberately, she let her hands glide up his arms, and those eyes were then full of both pleasure and alarm. 

The hair of his forearms was silky-rough under her palms and the sensation in her hands was almost painful in its intensity. She let them travel up over his shoulders until her fingers slipped like combs into the hair behind his ears. Her thumbs she tucked under the sharp angle of his jaw as she drew him slowly towards her again. He closed his eyes, though whether in submission or trust she couldn't tell. She opened her mouth just enough to slip his full lower lip between hers, and worried at it gently with her teeth. 

After a few moments, Buffy drew back a little to look at him. He opened his eyes again to take her in. He breathed once, quickly, and whispered, "You needn't stop, you know." 

She fitted her arms carefully about him, as though she had never held a man before. Then once she had him pressed close, she wasn't sure she'd be able to let go again. At first their lips brushed almost hesitantly - nearly chastely - but they transformed slowly into a blaze of fierce, hungry kisses, and then again into slower, more patient and intimate touches. They'd kissed like this before, long ago under the stairs at the Bronze, on the day their memories had been stripped from them and as suddenly returned. But this time there was no emptiness inside her, no shame. This time, she was going to get it right. 

Spike pulled her closer, burying his face in her hair and murmuring something that might have been her name. He was trembling a little, as was she, with sudden nervousness. 

"We could have done this sooner," she whispered at last. 

"Not like this, I think" he said quietly, shaking his head. 

"No. I guess not," she breathed. "So where do we go from here?" 

His sudden laughter startled her, and she drew back. 

"What's so funny?" 

"For a moment there, lamb, you had me worried you might break into song." 

"I haven't been able to watch an Indian movie since last year," she admitted with a grin. That was one experience she had no desire to relive. _Except maybe for part where I was kissing you..._ "And... lamb?" she asked, raising one eyebrow. "That's a new one. Where do you get _lamb_ from?" 

"Just thinking of your soft curls, love," he replied mischievously. 

She frowned and lifted one hand to her hair. "I don't have..." Her face suddenly flooded with colour as she realized what he meant. 

"Just because I have a soul, love..." He smiled wickedly, his tongue licking out over his lower lip. "I can still be a very bad man." 

She silenced his laughter again with her mouth. The feel of his body up against hers was a fire blazing up out of control. His arms slipped tightly around her. Without any direction from her, Buffy found her hands tugging up his shirt to caress the smooth, cool skin of his back. She pulled back from him just far enough to pull his shirt up over his head and toss it aside. 

Spike's hands in turn slipped under the lapels of her jacket to ease it back from her shoulders. It soon joined his shirt, puddled on the concrete floor. Her fingers next found the buttons of his jeans and began to ease them open, one by one, until they slipped down over his narrow hips. He stepped out of the jeans and stood naked before her. His chin lifted in the arrogant pose that she knew meant he was uneasy, and trying to hide it. 

The light filtering through the small basement window painted highlights on the muscles of his chest and abdomen, and she thought - not for the first time - how beautiful he looked naked. _Like some marble sculpture. _ She knew better than to say it, of course; what man could want to be described as beautiful? But he was, all the same. 

"Undress for me," he pleaded, his voice rough and low. 

As she lifted her own shirt over her head, Buffy felt her skin grow hot under his intense gaze. She wondered how just undressing in front of him could feel more intimate than any of the outrageous things they had ever done together. _Maybe because this is the first time it really matters. _ She was seized with a sudden unsteadiness, and fumbled at the closure to her pants. When she finally freed herself, he was right there before her with inquisitive hands and an eager mouth. Buffy threw her head back in abandon as his blunt teeth closed gently on the flesh of her throat. His hands wandered over her skin as though trying to memorize her every contour. 

Her own fingers, equally needy, caressed him, tracing the fretwork of old scars across his body. Even supernatural healing hadn't managed to erase every trace of his violent past, and Buffy felt a quiet pang of regret at having added to this tactile record, however necessary it had been at the time. 

When she finally had a moment to breathe again, she said, "I want to give you..." _everything I never did before. _ She stopped, frustrated that she couldn't find the words to say what she meant. 

"Buffy, you don't have to do--" She put one hand over his lips to still him, trying to collect her thoughts. But they skittered further away when he drew her fingertips into his mouth, caressing them with his tongue. 

"I want to make things right," she insisted, pulling her hand away from his lips reluctantly. "All the times we were together, I never asked you... what do _you_ want?" she asked hesitantly. 

"Just you, love. Be here. Be _with_ me." He sank to his knees before her, his hands resting on her thighs. "Let me..." 

She laid her hands lightly on his hair and urged him closer. The cold, gritty concrete of the wall abraded the bare skin of her back but she didn't care. The look in his eyes alone, gazing up at her, was enough to send her over the edge. Before all coherent thought drained away, she wondered again at how hands that had done such violence should be so adept at pleasure... 

********** 

Spike kissed his way back up her body as he stood. His honeyed lips found hers and his tongue slipped gently into her mouth, claiming it again with a kiss that left her knees even weaker. 

"I love you, Buffy," he murmured against her cheek. 

"I know," she replied gently. "Spike, I--" She couldn't finish. 

"Shhh," he soothed, resting his forehead against hers. "It's enough that you let me say it now." 

Buffy slipped from his embrace just long enough to draw back the covers on his bed, but when he would have pulled her down, she shook her head. "You lie down," she said. He raised one eyebrow, but complied. 

His senses narrowed to include only her as she climbed onto the bed and knelt over him. She kissed his forehead, his nose, his lips, and on down his body. Impatient with desire, he fastened his hands on her hips and settled her over him. The sweet hiss of her indrawn breath between her teeth as he entered her was more beautiful to him than any music could have been. It was rivalled only by her long, sighing exhalation as she slowly began to rock above him. 

Spike let his hands slide up from her hips, over her belly and breasts, up to her shoulders and down her arms, then pulled her down against him. The world around them faded and dimmed, until there was nothing left but the two of them, their bodies silvered with moonlight that somehow seemed to heighten the sensations that coursed along their skin. She moved through pleasure that broke over her like a sudden storm. When he cried out underneath her, her vision whited out as though lightning-dazzled, and thunder seemed to roar in her ears. 

When Spike opened his eyes again, it was to see Buffy standing over him, gloriously naked in the pale light. She reached out one hand to draw him up from the bed. His hands skimmed up over her as he stood, up over her hips and around her back, but she slipped away from his gentle grasp. He watched her for a moment, puzzled, then smiled as she sat on the bed herself. She settled herself comfortably in the cool depression he had left in his pillow, let her knees fall wide, and reached for him again. 

Buffy cradled Spike between her thighs as they began to rock again to his rhythm this time. She let one foot slide slowly down his leg, kneading at his calf with her toes. Once again they gave each other pleasure, strength and comfort, and received each again in return. They didn't say a word; there was nothing left between them that had to be said. And up until the moment they surrendered control of their bodies again, Buffy's eyes never left his. 

********** 

Spike settled again beside her, spooning up behind her to better fit them both on the narrow cot. Buffy helped him draw the blankets up over them, cocooning them together for what might be the last peaceful night they would ever know - though each of them had worked hard to pretend to the other that they were sure it would happen again. 

"Spike?" she murmured after a time. He stirred briefly, his face burrowing more deeply into her hair. Buffy traced the strong lines of his hand with her fingertips where it rested against her. "I do love you," she whispered. "I do." 

He didn't hear her, but the heathery scent of her hair invaded his dreams and made them sweet. 

_Fade to black. _


End file.
